Back when Homo sapiens weren’t the end-all of hominids, we also had some other two legged “humanish” cousins like the Neanderthals, Denisovians, and more!
There were nine different species of “humans”
By 10,000 years ago, they were all gone. The disappearance of these other species resembles a mass extinction. But there’s no obvious environmental catastrophe – volcanic eruptions, climate change, asteroid impact – driving it.
Instead, the extinctions’ timing suggests they were caused by the spread of a new species, evolving 260,000-350,000 years ago in Southern Africa: Homo sapiens.
Neanderthal skeletons show patterns of trauma consistent with warfare.
Like language or tool use, a capacity for and tendency to engage in genocide is arguably an intrinsic, instinctive part of human nature.
Optimists have painted early hunter-gatherers as peaceful, noble savages, and have argued that our culture, not our nature, creates violence. But field studies, historical accounts, and archaeology all show that war in primitive cultures was intense, pervasive and lethal.
Basically: the reason we as Homo Sapians find other human-ish figures unsettling and have an instinctual fear/aggression response called “The Uncanny Valley” is because we literally TOOK OVER THE WORLD by hunting down and killing every other hominid on the planet.
Dunno if the “9 species of hominid genocide” was a result of uncanny valley or the cause of it, but it’s a pretty sure bet to guess they’re linked.
Read more about it here :)
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